


Life Ain't No Fairy Tale

by mpatientdreamr



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-23
Updated: 2012-07-23
Packaged: 2017-11-10 13:52:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/467023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mpatientdreamr/pseuds/mpatientdreamr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Winchester brothers are occasionally morons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. There's a Difference

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Diverges from canon around the second or third season.

Xander watched as Dean finally just pinned Dawn to the wall and kissed her stupid. They’d been tearing at one another for almost two weeks. Dawn couldn’t help it she was right about the demon and Dean couldn’t help it he sometimes acted like a dickhead. Theirs was not necessarily a match made in Heaven. Xander even suspected the other side had set it up just so they’d have something to laugh about while the Watcher’s Council and the Winchesters decimated their ranks. One bullheaded Winchester plus one mule stubborn Summers girl equaled insta-chaos. 

Now, though, now they were trying to suck one another’s face off. The peace wouldn’t last. Dawn was usually right and Dean was always stubborn.

Xander sighed, “Ah, it warms the cockles.” 

Sam looked at him, amused, and said, “I don’t think that means what you think it means.”

Xander scowled. “Pervert. I meant that it’s good to see them getting along. Not that it’ll last.”

“When did you get to be such a pessimist?” Sam asked, letting the pervert comment roll off his back. _Dean_ was his big brother. He’d been called worse.

“Four months trapped in a car with them with their sexual tension and you with your pouting, that’s what made me such a pessimist,” Xander finally snapped. Either Sam was interested or he’d get a brawl, either way, he needed to blow off some steam.

“I do not pout,” Sam said, getting up in his face.

“That time you fell down the stairs and Dean laughed at you? You pouted. And the time Dawn beat you at Google-foo? You pouted. You pouted when Missouri told you to cut your hair and Bobby called you an idget and Ellen did that poker face thing she does whenever she sees the two of you coming. You, Samuel Winchester, are nothing but a big old pouter,” Xander said, stabbing his finger into Sam’s broad chest.

If he was anything like his brother…Yep, Sam curled those huge hands of his into Xander’s shirt and…huh, kissing. There was kissage. Apparently he wasn’t _exactly_ like his brother. Dean would have punched him to shut him up. Sam’s way was infinitely more pleasing. And look, big hands! Xander knew what that meant.


	2. Make a Difference

Sam had his tongue down Xander’s throat and his hands down Xander’s pants when Dean stumbled into their room reeking of Wild Turkey.

“Don’t mind me,” Dean said, flopping down on the unoccupied bed in the room and causing Sam to jerk which in turn caused Xander to whine because, oh yeah, hands in pants.

“Go away, Dean,” Sam said desperately as Xander gave him a full body rub.

“Can’t,” Dean shrugged. “We talked Giles into letting us share a room and Dawn’s thrown me out.”

Xander wound around him, one hand sliding down the back of his pants and mouthing at his neck.

“Uh,” Sam managed for a moment, then winced at the slight scrape of teeth and hurried out, “Find a couch.”

“Can’t,” Dean said again somewhat merrily. “Against Council rules to have a man sleeping anywhere besides a warded bedroom.”

“Shut the door,” Xander commanded before sucking on Sam’s neck.

“What?” Sam and Dean echoed.

“It’s been three months on the road,” Xander said, hand finally managing to wiggle up Sam’s shirt to smooth over muscle and scars. “I am getting laid. I am sleeping for 12 hours without fear of lice or weird demons. Then I’m eating one of Andrew’s bountiful home cooked breakfasts and getting laid again before we hit the road. So either get with the program, Mr. Cockblocker Extraordinaire, or go beg at Dawn’s door. Because I guarantee I can make Sam not care that you’re watching.”

Sam was a little surprised when Xander didn’t even wait for Dean to make a decision, just shoved Sam onto the bed and started kissing him breathless.

Sam forgot to listen for the sound of boots on hardwood, for the door slamming or softly shutting. He tangled his hands in Xander’s hair and shifted so that Xander was cradled between his thighs. He forgot everything as he mapped Xander’s life in the scars across his skin and they lost themselves in kisses.

Until his hand met familiar fingers in unfamiliar territory and he jerked, then moaned because, dammit, the hard body over his felt _good_. Still, he opened his eyes as Xander gave a full body shiver to see Dean intently rubbing a scar on Xander’s waist.

“What?” Sam managed, not sure if he was asking What the Hell or What was he doing.

“I’ve never seen this one,” Dean said hoarsely, eyes never leaving the puckered skin under his fingers.

“Bored baby Slayers plus maces equal accidental badness,” Xander said, then shivered when Dean steadily pressed into the scar.

“Dean?” Sam asked, tightening his arms around Xander.

Dean suddenly reared over them until he was nose to shoulder with Xander’s body and only his arms on either side of them kept Sam from being squished like a pancake.

“Why do you do what you do?” Dean asked into Xander’s bare shoulder.

“Dean,” Sam snapped, astonished that Dean would break hunter protocol like that.

“Because it’s what I’m good at,” Xander said, holding desperately still. “Because it’s what I know how to do.”

Something must have pinged for Dean because his eyes closed and he whispered, “What was her name? Or his name?”

“Dammit, Dean,” Sam said, struggling just a little.

“Jesse,” Xander said and Sam still as his heart rolled over. “He was first. Then Buffy. Ms. Calendar. Kendra, Cordelia, Joyce, Anya, Tara…”

As he poured out a litany of names, Sam’s heart broke. He and Dean had been raised to be hunters but it’d just been them and their dad for a long time. After their dad had died, they’d branched out and met other hunters and they felt their losses when that happened.

But their list wasn’t anything like Xander’s. Sam bet that Xander knew a million different things about the people he listed. Xander _knew_ them. They weren’t just names attached to hunters and demons.

Xander fell silent, then suddenly jerked out from between them and started to pull on clothes.

“I’m tired. I think I’m gonna hit Dawn up for her spare bed,” Xander said stiltedly and was gone before Sam could get his only slightly inebriated yet still uncoordinated brother off him.

“Dammit, Dean,” Sam said, angry as hell, and started to pull his clothes on as he hopped towards the doorway. “What the hell was that?”

“They have a hallway,” he said and Sam stopped looked back at him at his tone. He was stretched out with an arm flung over his eyes. “The hallway that leads to Mr. Giles’s offices. From about waist high to the ceiling, there’s all these pictures. And I asked Dawn if they were students of the Council. And she said that they used to be.” Dean lifted his arm and clenched his fists. “Her face, man. You should have seen her face. And then she said that Xander could tell you all of their names. She was _proud_ of that, Sammy.” He lurched upright and said, “She’s not coming back out with us. She has to go to England for a while to be with a friend. And you can’t have Xander, Sam. He belongs to somebody else. He belongs to that hallway of ghosts and the girls in this house.”

Sam’s heart broke because he knew Dean wouldn’t lie about something like that. When it came to Dawn and Xander, Dean was nearly as serious as he was about Sam. 

“We should go,” Sam said instead.

Because running was what the Winchesters were good at. The road was what they knew.


	3. Break in Faith

Dean was a tough guy. He fought demons, loved and left women, and always stayed on the move. Still, he was only a criminal when he had to be and he loved his family above all else. None of those qualities prepared him for what was waiting for them in their hotel room.

The door was locked and nothing was out of place but as soon as the door shut, he was being slammed into the wall as Sam was kicked across the room, all by one feisty little brunette in leather.

“You two have got to be the dumbest sons of bitches to ever walk this Earth,” she said, shaking her head as she slammed Dean idly against the wall. A gun cocked behind her and Dean was relieved to see Sam standing, gun pointing. She just snickered, though. “Bullets go bye-bye. You pissed off the Wicca of Sunnydale, son. You’re screwed until I’m done with you.”

Sam swallowed and pulled the trigger, the empty click echoing around the room. Dean shut his eyes, finally figuring out what this was all about.

“We left for their own good,” he said hoarsely, heart hurting just a little.

 _That_ pissed her off and she picked him up and bodily threw him onto the nearest bed, which was unfortunately really bouncy and he fell to the floor. He got up and creakily moved to stand next to Sam. They didn’t have bullets or guns but they still had each other.

“You’re morons,” she declared, flinging up her hands. “They went with you because they _wanted_ to. They wanted _you_ fuckers, God only knows why, and then they wake up alone. So what was it? The whacky lingo, the missing eye, the weird eating habits?”

“They didn’t belong with us!” Dean shouted, pissed. He’d let them go, the girl that could have meant something and the guy that’d become a good friend. He’d let them go for their own good and now they were being shoved in his face. “They would have gotten hurt.”

The woman studied them, then snorted and shook her head. “In the month and a half since you guys left, Dawn’s been kidnapped and almost sacrificed, beaten up by a pack of vamps trying to make a point, and forced to endure Andrew at his most motherhennish. Xander got gutted by a demon built like a rhino, almost eaten by a siren, and babied to within an inch of his life by every Slayer coming and going in the Cleveland house. You think what you fuckers do is dangerous? You move around, you kill small time leeches, and sometimes get fucked with by the bigger league demons. But Xan and Dawn? They’re _known_. Every demon in demondom knows that Dawn’s the Oldest Slayer’s little sister, that there’s something special about her blood. And they sure as hell know that the quickest way to get noticed by Buff or Red is to go after Dawn or Xander. She’s their baby, he’s their rock. Jesus, why am I bothering?”

She yanked open the door and Sam yelled, “Wait! Just wait, please. Are they okay?”

She slammed the door and it cracked. Dean winced, hoping she stayed on the other side of the room. He honestly didn’t feel like going toe-to-toe with a pissed off slayer right now, thank you very much.

“They’re fucking peachy, lamebrain,” she snapped, starting to pace. “Xan’s got stitches, Dawn’s got a couple of broken ribs. Nothin’ they haven’t dealt with before. But they’re heartbroken. I’m not sure either of them were completely _in_ love with you shits but they definitely loved you. And you left them without a note or so much as a fuck you. Like they didn’t matter. So, physically, they’ll be fine. They get into scrapes and they always come out fine. But they both had issues before hooking up with the two of you and now they’re doing that quiet, introspective thing that never turns out good for anybody.”

“The Slayers-,” Dean started.

And she cut him off. “Dude, they were happy for them. Xander doesn’t stay in one place long, not with B in Italy, G in England, Red down south, and everybody else spread out everywhere in between. As long as he stops in, remembers their birthday, or does that freaky thing where he calls when they needed him to most, they didn’t care that he was doing the road gig with you two. And it’s freedom for D. They’ve figured out that if it’s bad for them, just being younger Slayers to Buffy’s eldest, that being her younger sister’s gotta suck. They were happy for them.” She shrugged. “Now they’d happily rip your balls off and stuff them down your throat.” She tilted her head, a look in her eyes that Xander used to get, and said distantly, “Gotta jet. Pull your heads out of your asses and find a way to make things right. Or you’re gonna be in for a world of hurt.”

There was a bright flash and she was gone.

“Who the hell was _that_?” Sam snapped, doing the guy thing and focusing on everything but the real issue.

“Faith,” Dean said, collapsing onto a bed and rubbing his face. “Remember Dawn saying that there were only two Slayers hooked into the mind connection thing? Buffy’s blonde and probably just would have beat the shit out of us. That was Faith.”

Sam swallowed. “Great. We pissed off the oldest two slayers on the planet and the Red Witch. And Faith’s one of the Council’s enforcers.”

Dean jerked, looking at Sam, startled. “What?”

“Xander told me,” he said, heartbreak in every nuance. “There are three and Faith’s one of them.”

“Who are the other two?” Dean asked, concerned.

Sam shook his head. “He wouldn’t say. He just said that Faith’s usually the first warning. If she comes back with another enforcer, that’s the second warning.”

“What’s the third warning?” Dean asked, hands tightening on the mattress to either side of his thighs.

Sam gave him that look, the one that sometimes gave Dean shivers. “Nobody gets a third warning. They get a clean end.”

Dean got a nasty feeling in his gut about the few times he’d woken to the sound of a motorcycle engine and found Xander gone.

Sam wrapped his arms around himself. “I guess the only question now was whether she came as an enforcer or as a friend.”

“Both,” Dean said hoarsely, going with his instincts. “And I’m not sure that that’s not worse.”

Sam nodded. “What are we supposed to do?”

“Fix it,” Dean said, even though it grated. He _wanted_ Dawn and Xander back. He just didn’t want anybody telling him what to do. At Sam’s relieved face, he warned, “We have to do it our way, though. They’re gonna be pissed after they get over hurting and, if they figure out we were threatened, they’ll think that’s the only reason we’re coming back. And it’s not,” he said, as much to himself as to Sam. “It’s really not.”

Sam gave him a look. “I was kind of wondering if you’d figured it out or not.”

Dean screwed up his face at him. “You might be holding the map, bitch, but I’ve been driving the roads. I know we’ve been circling Cleveland for a month and a half.”

“Ass,” Sam shot back, smirking. “Little Deannie’s finally in love.”

Dean shook his head. “I don’t think I’m _in_ love, Sam. But I think I definitely love them.”

And Sam seemed to understand that that was a big deal because he shut up and started to pack.


	4. Groundwork

The first thing he did when they’d gotten to Cleveland was _not_ go up to the front door of the Council and knock because, despite sometimes being cocky and bone deep stubborn, Dean wasn’t completely fucking stupid. There were girls in there that could tear monsters to pieces and he’d pissed every last one of them off by emotionally wounding two of their own.

Of course, it immediately became a moot point because in the first demon bar they walked into in town, they heard that most of the Council Big Leagues had moved out of town. Buffy was in Rome, Red in Rio, Giles went back to England, Faith was doing the road warrior thing, Dawn bounced between them, and Xander was in fucking _Africa_. How they were supposed to fix anything while Dawn and Xander were on totally different _continents_ , Dean didn’t know.

None of that stopped them from walking into their motel room and finding Faith lounging on his bed, a small guy he’d never seen sitting calmly, quietly, fucking _serenely_ in a chair by the window. Their second warning had come and Dean didn’t even bother pulling his gun. If the Witch was in on this, it probably would have even done any good.

“We’re here,” Dean said, holding up his hands. “We can’t fix anything, though, if they’re not here.”

Faith smiled and, God, she had dimples. “I’m sure you’ve heard where they are.”

Icy sweat broke out on his skin. “I will _drive_ to the ends of the Earth for them. I don’t do planes.”

Her head cocked and she studied him. “Fair enough,” she said, nodding. She leaned forward, elbows on her knees. “In two days, the Council is holding its Beltane masquerade ball slash bonfire. Your costumes are hanging in the bathroom, the invitations, which you _will_ need, in the pockets. This is your second warning. There will not be a third. But we won’t actually kill you if you don’t fix things.” The small man, still eerily still, snorted. “Red wanted us to actually make sure you understand that. We’re giving you a timetable to fix your fuck up but we’re not actually going to kill you if you decide you don’t want to. But if you don’t, don’t ever show your face around the Council again. We’ve got shit enough lives without old heartbreaks showing up to flash their ass at us.”

She stood and the man nearly matched her in eerie grace. Dean and Sam parted to let them pass. She stopped at the door and looked at them. This time she wasn’t angry, not really. She just seemed tired, really tired. Whatever she saw, it didn’t erase the anger or the tired but she straightened a little.

When she was gone, Dean looked at Sam. “What do you think?”

“Lycanthrope,” Sam said instantly.

Yeah, that fit. The man had tight control, especially considering it was the night before the full moon and he should have shifted. But the eerie grace, the serenity, the light tread. He was definitely a Lycanthrope.

“What do you think?” Dean asked again.

“I hope they didn’t pick Tarzan or something stupid,” Sam said, shrugging.

Because, yeah, it didn’t matter what costume was behind the bathroom door. In two nights, they were going to a ball.

   
 


	5. Stealing Cinderella

The party was being held in Dawn’s favorite cemetery, hundreds of years old and dormant. The Slayers kept the crypts and mausoleums cleaned out. But mostly, it was the quiet of the place, like the people in the ground actually managed to rest in peace, like their tombstones said.

Dawn sighed, glancing around. The fairy lights above them lit the edges of the crowd and the bonfire was enough to chase the chill away. But she wasn’t really in a partying mood. Hadn’t been, really, for a while. 

Her eyes landed on Xander, who was sprawled in a chair as far away from everyone as he could get and she sighed again. Xander didn’t do break ups all that well and especially not when he hadn’t seen it coming. He’d gone to Africa to get away from the hoard of people that wanted to mother him and stumbled around finding Slayers and magic wielders and forgetting to call like he was supposed to.

If she could stop thinking about the brothers, she was pretty sure she would feel better and that she could make him feel better. But she couldn’t forget the smell of leather seats and gunpowder. The feel of the road under wheels rocking her to sleep. Quiet country nights and loud pounding Metal in the morning.

She couldn’t forget calloused hands or that mischievous smile and remembering just made her want to cry. She closed her eyes and rubbed her arms to ward off the sudden chill and pretended that it was the cold making her eyes water. 

She took a deep breath and stilled all over. She let the tear fall because it wasn’t fair. The wind wasn’t supposed to carry leather and gunpowder to her. Calloused fingers ghosted along the silky skin of her arms and her face crumpled. If this was a Beltane miracle, this being surrounded by him, then he was dead and that was worse than just gone.

But warm lips pressed against the bend of her neck and the fingers curved solid and real around her arms. She spun and started to beat his chest with balled fists, sobbing, and he let her, talking in a low voice that she barely heard. “I’m sorry” and “I was wrong” and “It was the wall” and she didn’t care because that wasn’t important. Everybody left, that was just how the life of a Scooby went. But he came back. He came back and for that she could forgive him his cowardice.

She yanked off the white domino with little pink roses embroidered around the edges and pressed her face into his shoulder, inhaling as she wrapped her arms tight around him. She shifted a little and could see, half in the shadows, away from the warm glow of the fire, Faith watching with a pleased little smirk.

“You only get to leave if you take me with you,” she whispered harshly, watching Faith bleed into the black.

His arms clenched. “I promise.”

And she was okay that that was probably as close as she would ever get to an I Love you.


	6. Chasing Prince Charming

Xander saw Dean before he’d even reached Dawn and decided that whoever’d been in on getting him here had excellent taste. They’d gone with 18th century highway robber, high boots and long leather trench coat and a holster for the gun on his hip. Xander’s own costume was almost as simple, black pants tucked into tall black boots and a white fluffy shirt. Pirates were awesome because he got to wear his eyepatch _and_ a sword.

Of course, Xander was up and moving before Dean had spotted him because, where there was one Winchester brother, there was another, and Xander wasn’t about to have a fistfight in the middle of a bonfire. The ways to accidentally die were astronomical and Xander wasn’t going to risk it. He was going to clock Samuel Winchester but he was going to do it where neither of them could accidentally catch on fire or land on something sharp.

A hand reached out from beside a crypt as he passed and yanked and Xander was swinging before he could really see who it was.

“Christ,” Sam murmured, hand pressed to his bleeding mouth.

Then Xander pulled back and swung again, catching him right in the nose. If that meant that Sam couldn’t see the tears that started to well up or hear the harsh breathing, well, all the better. 

And Xander ran because he hated to cry and he didn’t really want to get punched when he was already having trouble breathing.

Somebody tackled him from behind, long body allowing him to roll but getting him into some kind of hold that Xander just didn’t have the skill to break out of. And, goddess, but Sam looked horrible, blood smeared over his face and bags under his eyes.

The hands around his wrists flexed, then Sam closed his eyes and rolled his forehead against Xander’s before tucking his face into his neck and there were tears on his skin that weren’t Xander’s. Xander lay still for a moment, shocked, before gently pulling his wrists free and wrapping his arms around Sam, one hand coming up to run through thick hair. And words started, barely recognizable, “I’m Sorry,” and “Scared” and “Belong to so many people” and Xander carefully rolled them, letting his body rest on Sam’s as he pulled out a white hanky and started to mop at Sam’s face, tears and blood and tired hopelessness staining it.

Then he leaned down and kissed him, hot and heavy, because he’d been gone and he’d come back and Xander understood fear and running and never being able to run far enough. Sam clenched around him and it was like grappling with sexy stuff thrown in and a little rough, angry make up sex seemed to be appropriate.

He knew that Sam wasn’t a Happily Ever After kind of guy. Xander wasn’t, either, not really. And Xander didn’t really want Happily Ever After because forever was a long time and he eventually wanted some peace. But damned if he wasn’t taking every second of happy he could get.


End file.
